Ellen's advice to Virgin Diaries couple: "Less chewing"

Meagan Morris is an entertainment and lifestyle journalist living in New York City. In addition to SheKnows, Morris contributes to many publications including The New York Times, Yahoo! News, PopEater, NBC New York and Spinner. Follow he...

Virgin Diaries explores virgin couples

A new TLC reality show, Virgin Diaries, explores the life of couples who chose to remain celibate until marriage.

TLC, you've done it again. The network that brought us such classic reality shows such as Jon and Kate Plus 8,19 Kids and Counting and Extreme Couponing is now onto its newest niche reality show: Virgin Diaries.

No, it's not another show about teenage brides getting ready for their first marriages. Instead, Virgin Diaries focuses on twentysomething brides and grooms who are abstaining from sex until marriage.

One couple, Shanna and Ryan, are both in their early 30s and haven't even kissed another person -- they're waiting for their wedding.

Naturally, it was awkward. One of the trailers for the Virgin Diaries shows the duo at their wedding, just as the pastor says "you can now kiss the bride."

"Really?" Ryan said before lunging at his bride. The result was a cringe-worthy-yet-sweet make out session that inspired laughter and mock embarrassment from the guests.

Ellen DeGeneres showed the clip on her show and gave the couple some advice.

"Less chewing," she laughed.

The choice to air such a show was a natural one, according to TLC reps. So much of their programming follows the lives of those who have plenty of babies that they wanted to show the other end of the spectrum.

"Losing one's virginity is a big life decision," said TLC's west coast vice president of production, Timothy Kuryak, to ABCNews.com. "It seemed like one of those seminal life moments that's interesting to follow for TLC."

Critics have blasted the show for mocking life decisions of those featured on the show. Not so, says Kuryak.

"We're not trying to make light of this or treat it in a sort of trivial way. We want to document these people's stories and why they make this decision," he said. "A lot of stories about later-in-life virgins talk about it like a problem. We want to show that this is something that can be celebrated."

We'll have to wait until the show to find out how the other part of Ryan and Shanna's wedding night went down. They did talk about it several times before the big day.

"I'm a little nervous. Nervous about the actual intercourse I would say. I'm scared," Ryan says.

"I think that you should take a shower first, and then I'll take a shower, and then I'll put on my lingerie, and I'll come into the room,' Shanna declares.